12.01.08

Perhaps you were able to spend the past 4 days with your family and friends ; it doesn’t seem as though the New York Post’s Marc Berman did much besides provide the Knicks’ estranged PG Stephon Marbury with opportunities to vent. Pt. I of Berman’s session with Stephon ran on Saturday, with further self-defense provided in today’s paper.

In another exclusive interview with The Post, Marbury said, “I sat there for three weeks and didn’t say one word. I didn’t hear one of my teammates say, ‘Why isn’t Stephon Marbury playing? This is a good system for him, even to play with the second unit to bring more firepower.’

“When things got bad and then worse, guys like Quentin Richardson say, ‘I don’t consider him a teammate. He let his teammates out to dry.’ He didn’t care I was his teammate when I was banished. They left me out for dead. It’s like we’re in a foxhole and I’m facing the other way. If I got shot in the head, at least you want to get shot by the enemy. I got shot in the head by my own guys in my foxhole. And they didn’t even give me an honorable death.”

“(Walsh) suspended me without hearing both sides,” Marbury said. “That wasn’t fair. He took it upon himself to fine me without even speaking to me.”

Walsh called Marbury on Friday morning with news of the suspension, Marbury said.

“He said he spoke to my coach and my coach has no reason to lie to me – he hasn’t lied to me yet,” Marbury said, quoting Walsh.

“I said, ‘He’s lied to you now.’ “

Marbury furthered his dispute on the fine that’s based on their Detroit conversation.

“Mike gave the option to play,” Marbury said. “He couldn’t come to me man to man and say you have to play. It was an option.”

Marbury said he was skeptical of D’Antoni’s offer – following the Knicks’ recent trades – to be the starting shooting guard, and wondered if the offer was Walsh’s doing. The Knicks still are awaiting word on Cuttino Mobley’s status, with signs pointing to his heart condition being career-ending.

“Mike had no intentions of me playing basketball here,” Marbury said. “He gave me straight disrespect. It was beyond disrespect. He put in (Danilo) Gallinari, whose back is messed up and [who] didn’t participate at all in training camp ahead of me [in the opener]. . . . That’s saying I’m letting you have it right now. He was sticking it to me.